Agree with Gerard. We WANT Youtube, Facebook, and others to use our
content. That is one reason why we have released it under an open license
and I believe one reason why we have been so successful. We of course also
want them to provide appropriate attribution. I think this would be better
achieved by reaching out and discussing it with these groups directly
rather than initially by legal means. In my experience most reputable
organizations are happy to attribute when asked.
With respect to intermediation and them providing financial or direct
technical support Google, Apple, and Microsoft are listed here as major
beneficiaries as is the Brin Wojcicki Foundation
Would the WMF be happy
with greater support? Yes I imagine so.
James
Please note that this is written in a personal capacity and does not
represent an official position of anyone but myself.
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:41 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
Maybe you know, but Katherine Mayer gave a talk at the CC conference The
subject was big companies using our content (it is not just writing) and
making a profit giving nothing / not much in return. The issue she raised
is that it may interfere with our collaboration model. People will
associate our content with the company that profits in this way and not
contribute their knowledge their expertise with us.
So no word from the WMF, far from it. When you want the WMF to sue.. There
is wonder if the effect it will have is really what we want. For me it is
first and foremost that people are properly informed and I prefer a YouTube
a Facebook to use our data over them not to do so over license issues.
Remember the days when Wikipedia was young; it was a wide held belief.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 16 April 2018 at 01:53, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Is someone from WMF monitoring wikimedia-l and
notifying relevant
employees
when an issue arises under their remit? This
issue - big companies using
our writing without attribution and like-licensing - has been hanging
with
no word from the WMF for six months.
Anthony Cole
On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 6:22 PM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I see this from Brian Heater at Tech Crunch on 25
March:
"In a conversation earlier this week, Wikimedia’s Chief Revenue Office,
Lisa Gruwell told TechCrunch that this sort of usage doesn’t constitute
any
> sort of formal relationship. Most companies more or less hook into an
API
> to utilize that breadth of knowledge. It’s
handy for sure, and *it’s
all
> well within Wikimedia’s fair use rules*, but
as with Maher’s letter,
the
CRO
expressed some concerns about seemingly one-sided relationships ...
*Smart
> assistants are certainly playing by the applicable rules when it comes
to
leveraging that information base.*"[1]
That article I link to has both Katherine (WMF ED) and Lisa (Chief
Revenue
> Officer) asking the companies who use our work for free to "give
back." I
> want them to give back too, but I don't
absolve them of their
obligation
to
meaningfully attribute my work and share it with
the same rights
attached.
If it is the opinion of the WMF that these smart
assistants are not
breaching my rights, I'd like to see the legal advice that opinion is
based
on.
1.https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/24/are-corporations-that-
use-wikipedia-giving-back/
Anthony Cole
On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 5:47 PM, WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes of course the WMF can contact those who are detected reusing our
> content without fully complying with licenses and encourage them to
> comply.
>
> If a case were to go to court it would need to have one or more
> contributors who were willing to cooperate with WMF legal in the case.
But
> I doubt there would be a shortage of
contributors who were keen to do
so.
>>
>> As for why the WMF should do so, here are three reasons:
>>
>> Each of our wikis is a crowd sourced project. Crowd sourcing requires
a
>
crowd, if a crowd settles down and stabilises it becomes a community.
The
> community is broadly stable, but we need a
steady flow of new
wikimedians,
>> and our only really effective way of recruiting new Wikimedians is for
>> them
>> to see the edit button on our sites. An increasing shift to our
content
> being
used without attribution is an existential threat to the project
and
>> hence to the WMF.
>>
>> Our communities are made up of volunteers with diverse motivations.
For
> some
of us the BY-SA part of the licensing is important, personally I
feel
>> good when i see one of my photos used by someone else but attributed
to
> me.
> If the de facto policy of the WMF was to treat volunteer contributions
as
>> effectively CC0 this would be demotivating for some members of our
>> community. I'm also active on another site where every member
regularly
>> gets stats on their readership,
something I very much doubt would
happen
>> if
>> it wasn't an effective mechanism to encourage continued participation.
>>
>> Every organisation needs money, the WMF gets most of its money by
asking
>> for it on wikipedia and other sites.
Again, encouraging attribution
back
>> to
>> Wikipedia etc tackles the existential threat of other sites treating
>> wikipedia et al as CC0.
>>
>>
>> WSC
>>
>> On 5 April 2018 at 08:04, <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > On 04/04/2018 08:36 PM, Anthony Cole wrote:
>> > > I'm curious also. I release my articles under "attribution,
share
>> alike"
>> > > and rely on WMF to preserve those rights.
>> >
>> > Why are you relying on the WMF? Wikipedia contributors (like
yourself)
> >
are the ones who own copyright to the articles - the WMF doesn't.
Unless
>> > you've granted/transferred copyright to the WMF (or some other
license
>> > enforcement agreement), I don't
think they can pursue legal action
for
>> > you or other Wikipedians. (IANAL,
etc.)
>> >
>> > -- Legoktm
>> >
>> >
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